Fire, used with benefit by humanity for thousands of years, can break out of control at any moment and cause misfortune. For a long time, improvised means - water and sand - have been used to fight fires. It was only in the 18th century that the first devices for extinguishing fires were used, from which the history of the modern fire extinguisher began.
The history of fire extinguishing agents
The first device that found its application in the practice of fire extinguishing is considered to be a wooden barrel filled with water, alum and gunpowder. Such a vessel was thrown into the very heat, after which the container filled with gunpowder exploded. The water scattered during the explosion extinguished the fire. For the first time such a device was used in Germany in 1770.
In the middle of the 19th century, the Russian inventor N. Stafel developed and tested an explosive powder fire extinguisher with the self-explanatory name "Pozharogas". It looked like a box in which a mixture of alum, ammonium sulfate, sodium bicarbonate and earth was put. Inside the device there was a cartridge with a cord and a powder charge.
In the event of a fire, it was necessary to remove the protective tape, set fire to the wick and send the box to the epicenter of the fire. After a few seconds, the device exploded, and its components stopped burning.
Later, the body of the fire extinguisher turned from a box into a glass cylinder with thin walls, which was hermetically sealed. The composition of the components that filled such a vessel also changed. But it was not very convenient to use such a tool - for this you had to open the flask and pour the composition into the fire. The effectiveness of these early extinguishers was very low.
Further development of the fire extinguisher
At the beginning of the 20th century, an engineer from Russia A. Laurent invented and tested an original method of extinguishing a fire by means of foam. The foam itself was formed in the course of rather complex chemical reactions between alkaline solutions and acid. The found method later formed the basis for foam fire extinguishers that have survived to this day at a number of industrial enterprises.
In the last century, electrical engineering began to develop rapidly, which often became the cause of fires. This made new demands on the fire extinguisher. The body of the device became metal, and liquefied carbon monoxide was used as a working substance. Later, the fire extinguisher was equipped with a valve head and a trigger-type trigger.
For more effective extinguishing of the fire, special bells were used.
After the end of World War II, the efforts of inventors focused on the development of dry powder fire extinguishers, the mass production of which gained momentum in the 60s. The powder principle of extinguishing fires was recognized at that time as the most effective, although other types of fire extinguishers did not go out of circulation. In the practice of modern fire extinguishing, reusable air-emulsion and air-foam fire extinguishers are also used.
